Well--well! I am full of sadness and perplexities: but we shall hear it out anon.

Heaven help them! Emily was taken very ill, and had a long fit of sickness.

Day and night--night and day, did her poor wasting anxious father watch by her bed-side, gentle as the gentlest nurse--tender as the tenderest of mothers.

And, indeed, the Lord of Life and Wisdom was gracious to them both; raising up the poor weak child again; and teaching that old man, through this daughter of his shame and sin in youth, that religion is a cure for all things.

Ay, "the blessed angel of a bad man's life," indeed--indeed was she; and he humbly knelt, as little children kneel, that hard and dried old man; and his eyes caught the ray of Heaven's mercy, looking up in joy to read forgiveness; and his heart was bathed in penitence--the rock flowed out amain; and his mind was quickened into faith--he lived, he breathed "a new-born babe," that poor and bad old man, given to the prayers of his own daughter! All this while, Mrs.Tracy, thrown upon her own resources, has been continually tasting dear Julian's store, and finding out excuses for his trivial peccadilloes.